W. Russell Webster Boeken

On the evening of January 2, 2009, Captain Matteo Russo and crewman John Orlando got underway aboard the fifty-four-foot fishing vessel Patriot , from the iconic State Pier in Gloucester, Massachusetts, bound for nearby fishing grounds in search of cod. They never returned. What happened less than eight hours later on that bitter and dark winter early morning that caused the Patriot to sink? Why did the Coast Guard deliberate more than two hours before launching a rescue mission? Using official documents, numerous interviews and insight as a search and rescue commander, maritime historian Captain W. Russell Webster, USCG (Ret.), expertly documents the tragedy of the Patriot , with startling findings. He deftly explores the condition of "normalcy bias'? linked to this heartbreaking case, which can cause people--including Coast Guard personnel--to deny and sometimes over-deliberate threats to human life.

On March 22, 1990, local fishermen Hokey Hokanson and his teenage son, Billy, set sail for Cape Cod in the "Sol e Mar." When disaster struck three days later, Billy transmitted a brief, heavily garbled radio distress call. A hoax call immediately followed Billy's cry for help, and believing that the two were connected, the U.S. Coast Guard did not launch rescue units for several days. The Hokansons' deaths prompted a new anti-hoax law and changed United States Coast Guard search and rescue procedures. Historian Captain W. Russ Webster, U.S. Coast Guard (Ret.), and journalist Elizabeth B. Webster chronicle the fascinating story of the "Sol e Mar" and its crew and explain the psychology of hoax callers and Coast Guard technological advancements since the tragedy.